So, the Tour de France. As usual, there seem to be at least two races going on, except one of them isn’t really a race any more. I’m enjoying the other one.
Anyway today’s stage ends in Carcassonne, and this prompted me to spend yesterday lunchtime scrolling back through Facebook to find the following filk, which wrote itself gently over the course of the 2017 and 2018 tours. It didn’t start out being about the 2018 Carcassonne-Bagnères de Luchon stage, but it rather ended up that way. Enjoy.
Busted flat at the flamme rouge, caught up by a train, feeling cooked as I approached the line, The peloton came past me while I fumbled with my chain And I followed them a minute ten behind. I'd been in a break of two for two hundred K of mountains, The bunch had let us go because they knew I was twenty minutes down on that shining yellow jersey And the other guy was out for mountains too Stage win's just another word for nothing left to lose Nothing, I mean, honey, if it ain't GC, Feeling good was easy when I was in that break of two Feeling good was good enough for me Good enough for me and Warren Barguil From the walls of Carcassonne to the slopes of Col de Menté Me and Warren shared the brotherhood of the road Through all kinds of weather, riding hard to get away We shared the pace, yeah, took turns to bear the load But once we'd cleared the summit he let me slip away He wants the KOM and I hope he finds it But I'd trade all of my stage wins for one shot at the GC And to wear that yellow jersey 'cross the line Oh, stage win's just another word for nothing left to lose Nothing, I mean, honey, if it ain't GC, Feeling good was easy when I was in that break of two Feeling good was good enough for me Good enough for me and Warren Barguil
Credit for the Stage win’s just another word for nothing left to lose line ought to go to my partner, but since he didn’t actually know the rest of the song I’m assimilating it.
Apologies to Kris Kristofferson. And to Warren Barguil, obviously. And to the narrator: actually I think this is a little unfair on him.
Other things I have written about cycling include: a story in the next Bikes In Space anthology, a story in the one after that, and an explanation of how I got into cycling in the first place. And a novel.
Kathleen Jowitt 